Chapter Text
Gotham nights were loud and rowdy every day, but today—today was somehow worse.
Jason is already stressed enough however of course, the bats won't let him rest for a moment, and today? Today was Tim Drake shouting about some unworthy thing.
“Red hood, Batman won’t be happy hearing about what you did tonight,” Tim smirked finally after shouting about the same topic for the past 10 minutes.
“So? What will he do, kill me?” Jason huffed in reply.
“Huhh- Oh dear, you should stop by now this joke is no fun.
Because it’s pretty clear that if someone is going to be a murderer in this family it won’t be Batman but you, as you can see.”
Oh my god , this is seriously annoying. I spent the whole night fighting and helping the bats, but now I'm supposed to bear and endure this kid with his anger issues?
Jason is extremely upset.
This week has been bad enough.
Definitely not the worst, as he remembers that week after the incident with Batman, but this week has definitely been bad enough.
“Red Robin, watch your words.”
“Well, I was going to, but half an hour ago, didn’t you almost kill that guy? You literally shot him in the muscle between the lung and the chest, I'm shocked that he's still alive.
-Just admit it, you wanted to kill him, didn’t you? If i and spoiler weren’t there, you probably would leave him bleeding to death w–”
This is frustrating.
Jason is already irritated enough, but this guy is pushing him even further.
oh.
I realized too late—Tim had been talking far beyond his weight.
And I ? Couldn't stop myself from hitting him—
…
Jason punched Tim in the face with enough force to send him flying.
“What the hell red..” Spoiler yelled at him.
And then silence occupied , no one talked,and no one asked. It was just silence.
Steph was the first one to move, She gently grabbed Tim by the shoulder to urge him to leave.
Tim looked directly at him and said in a distant tone.
“I know it.”
Jason held his breath for a second; Tim continued.
“Take a dog home, and this is what happens. Even though he has everything, a dog is still one, and that is something you can't change with whatever efforts.”
Jason grabbed his hands silently.
Tim and Steph left him without a glance.
Leaving him standing there alone .
Jason mumbled something inaudible, his voice low and unintelligible.
He looked down at the ground, lost in thought.
Good heavens! He'd hit a seventeen-year-old again! Great.
Shortly after they left, Jason looked up from the ground, walked over, and sat quietly on the rooftop.
Jason was lost in thought, he watched the bustling city of Gotham, but despite its noise, it couldn't fill the emptiness inside him.
Jason believes that nothing can fill this strangely quiet, silent void, not even Gotham itself.
If we're acting in a drama, I'd be the annoying, contradictory secondary character that no one likes and who's only there because it exists.
He thought.
This is no fun, his whole life is no fun after all.
Clack, clack, clack.The sound of quiet footsteps roused him from his reverie—deliberate footsteps that seemed to persist.
Jason, inexplicably, knew who was behind him.
It wasn't Batman, nor anyone from the Batman family or his henchmen.
He somehow knew.
What is this? What is he even doing in Gotham?
“Deathstroke”
“It’s been a while birdie.” The professional killer smiled slightly at him from behind his mask.
Jason didn't get up, nor did he tense up.
Well, Deathstroke wouldn't kill his previous student anyway.
He thought, without taking his eyes off the city in front of him, How long has he been watching? He seems to have been here for a while.
Did he see that just a little while ago?
He couldn't ask because Deathstroke seemed to know exactly what Jason was thinking.
He told him lightly, "I saw that. It was a good show."
"Yeah of course it always is." Jason hummed.
“Were you following me?" he asked after a while.
"No dear I wish,"Slade smirked "I had a contract here to fulfill, and I thought I'd like to see what happened to my favorite protégé.”
When did he even take off his mask?
It seems he took it off because he saw Jason without his helmet too.
Wow, he trusts him that much.
“I haven't seen you for almost a year, and I wanted to see for myself what's been happening to the little nineteen-year-old."
"How is it going?"
“Right sure, I’m pretty much tired, I think,” Jason hummed.
“Yeah, that's very clear. Does this happen often?”
“What happens often? being tired or, Huh- fighting with the bats?”
“Both, Do they happen often?”
"Don't make me start," he said quietly, with an almost sarcastic tone.
Slade fell silent and followed Jason's gaze to the city, where he contemplated the ugly, pale factories with an empty look again, and perhaps despairingly.
What is happening?
Oh God, Slade didn't want to interfere, but he couldn't leave when he saw his favorite apprentice like this.
Jason was a good kid; Slade liked him.
He wanted to leave and go to his next contract location, But how?How could he do that when he knew the boy was in such a state of decline? Not that Slade was kind or gentle,
but well. Slade was loyal, loyal to himself at least , so he had to talk to this boy.
He was his apprentice after all; they had worked together, and he had trained him for over a year.
Slade didn't speak.
He knew Jason would say something so soon, so he waited quietly.
Had five minutes passed? Ten minutes – it didn't really matter.
The child finally opened his mouth and said calmly, "Outsider."
“Hmm” Slade hummed.
Jason continued, “‘Outsider’ – this is what I am to them.”
“Every moment, every second is disgusting.”
“How? Did they do something?” Slade asked.
“It isn’t disgusting because of them it is disgusting because of me.”
“I’m disgusted of myself because I can see it, but I—I am still like this.”
“Like what?”
“I feel like a hypocrite, a liar, and hateful because I see through them and know I can't be among them like this, but I can't abandon them or Red Hood.”
Jason knows that killing, morality, and principles are not things one can simply abandon. He truly knows this—deeply and painfully. And because of that, he understands that no matter how hard he tries, he will never truly belong among them.
"I always claim I’m more effective than Batman—but I betrayed my own principles the moment I spared a man who destroyed lives, simply because I wanted Batman’s approval. I hesitated when I faced crime lords who ordered massacres, traffickers who ruined generations, and monsters who walked free knowing the system would fail again. Each time, I chose his rules over my convictions—and that betrayal weighs heavier than any blood I could have spilled."
“I feel disgusted, utterly disgusted with myself.”
What the actual–??
Slade is shocked, extremely shocked.
This kid was certainly broken and very angry two years ago, but now how could they break him even more than he already was? Do the members of the Batfamily and Batman himself not know the basics of dealing with a broken child???
Jason took a breath and continued, “They call me a family...But but I’m not more than an outsider they keep around to watch.”
Slade wanted to say something, but he couldn't. He didn't know how to begin or what he should start with. Well, actually, he couldn't start with anything because, after several moments of thinking, Jason finally looked at him and said, "I'm really tired."
As soon as Slade saw the look in his eyes, he made up his mind. He had to take this child somewhere far away from Gotham for a while. True, he didn't know what to do, but a day or two would be enough.
He remembered that this child loved reading and many other things; he liked plays like Hamlet or Cloud Atlas .
But he wasn't going to let the child see a tragic play that ended in suicide while he was in that state of mind.
So he decided to take him to Russia.
The premiere of the series based on “The Brothers Karamazov” was happening in two days.
Well, the timing was suitable; he could postpone his next contract a little.
Slade noticed that he was starting to drift off in thought and had forgotten that the child had just told him he was tired, very tired. He looked at the child and noticed his eyes. What was the child thinking? His face was already very pale.
"Get up and take me to the nearest safe house of yours," Slade told Jason.
"Why?" Jason mumbled.
"We're going somewhere, and I think you'll want to wear something different there, and warmer, maybe."
"Huh" Jason was surprised, but he stood up anyway.
And so, Deathstroke Plan A-01 begins, a method to change the child's mood in the shortest possible time.